This year, Windows turns 20. And while PC Magazine has done some serious coverage on the behemoth OS, it is important that we look back on how Windows has shaped the computing world. The operating system really took shape in 1990 with Windows 3.0, and with Windows NT in 1993. Those two operating systems caught the attention of the average and professional user, since it provided a platform for the home and business environments.

Although Macintosh was introduced in 1984, its tight marriage with its proprietary hardware stifled the system into a distant second against the install base of Windows, because Windows was designed for open platforms, not just one prebuilt computer.

But things got big with Windows 95, selling one million copies over just a few days. While Windows NT continued to flourish in the commercial world, many software companies jumped on the bandwagon, from engineering programs to billing software and filing software (i.e., File Maker Pro).

Linux was introduced by our computing pal Linus Torvalds in 1991. Unfortunately, development in the Linux world is slow and painful, because while Linux continues its amazing performance as an OS, the lack of productive applications running native to Linux is holding the OS back. But the new SuSE Linux 10 may change that aspect, and that will be left for another thread.

The 20 year-old Windows, many experts agree, will continue its dominance for years to come, because it is in our culture, and that is all the average user knows. Vista will for sure change the way our PCs perform and accelerate our productivity, but it will still be an imperfect operating system. What really stumped Microsoft, other than the anti-trust lawsuit and monopoly trial, was Windows Millenium Edition... the mediocre upgrade from Windows 98 that left a sour taste in the mouth of many a Windows user, especially since the crummy OS shipped with PCs, especially HP. Ouch. Then came the innovative Windows XP, a much better system than the 9x platform but under serious malware and spyware attack. Its 50 million lines of code doesn't help the problem much either. The version of SuSE Linux I am using right now contains only about 8 million lines of code, and performance is superior, with a slicker GUI.

That being said, with Vista 11 months away from shipping, Windows is here to stay, like it or not. I won't lie, I'll be in line to buy a copy.

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